sometimes! you totally nailed that buddy. simple. don't let directv now limit your entertainment. only xfinity gives you more to stream to any screen. >> good morning. coming up on msnbc's "your business." this young woman decided to start her own small business rather than go to college. the third generation owner of the iconic radio flyer company capitalizing on nostalgia while continuing to innovate. plus, what you need to know to close that deal. that's all coming up next on "your business."

hi there, everybody. welcome to "your business." the show dedicated to helping your small business grow. the list of successful entrepreneurs who never receive college degrees is pretty impressive. bill gates and steve jobs are just a couple of them. dropping out of school is certainly not for everyone, but we met one texas college fresh marn who had no doubts at all that for her college would be a waste of both her team and her money. two years ago she quit school and went to the business for herself. we wanted to find out if she

thinks she made the right decision. ♪ >> hi. welcome to -- >> my goal in life is to own a large successful business. >> 23-year-old aubry jannica, plano, texas, has big dreams. >> at a certain point you have to say no morae algebra or calculus. >> amber, have you made the -- >> no, that was me. >> okay. >> i'm learning how to do payroll. i'm learning how to do the schedule. i'm learning how to run a business. >> i don't know what our field -- actually, a really good lunch. no, pretty good. >> just over two years ago aubry was a 19-year-old college freshman. when she decided to tell her father, hank jannick, that she was dropping out of school and putting her life savings into starting up her own company.

>> i had anxiety about it for weeks, and it was something i had nightmares about. how am i going to tell dad that i'm not going to go to college? >> i know aubry thought i was going to be disappointed, but i knew from a very early age that school academia was just not for aubry. >> once he realized that college wasn't the route i was going to go down, i sat down and laid down the plan. >> the plan was simple. take the money that was paying for college along with the rest of her savings and get started running a business. >> i thought about making my own business from scratch, but then that comes with a lot of risk, and i was relatively inexperienced at that point, and so i was very nervous about starting a business from scratch. >> her father suggested going with an established franchise concept might be less risky, and aubrey jumped on it. >> i was trying to find a concept that would not only accept me as a 20-year-old franchi franchisee, that was in my price range. >> hank also suggested she avoid taking on anything too complex.

>> you needed something simple as sandwiches or pizza or -- you want to limit what your responsibilities are so that you can get good at that and then move on to something bigger. >> i was, like, i can do this. it's not going to be a big deal, but my dad was the one who was iwas, like, no you're not ready. >> she wouldn't be ready until she got hands on experience learning how franchises operate. >> i then went to chicago and worked for six months, and that's what work in chicago taught me was that i have to know restaurant operations. i have to know business. i have to know how to do this or else i'm going to fail. >> after she spent time learning the ropes with others, they both felt it was time for aubrey to get started on her own. >> i went to a $250,000 loan. >> aubrey came in to see us, and she was prepared, looked professional. she brought in her business plan. >> jeff baucus is chief lebding officer at the local synergy

bank. he remembers being very impressed. >> she's thought about this. she's thought about where she's wanting to go, how she's wanting to grow and expand. >> even though i was incredibly anxious, and i think that he had to have respected the fact that i was prepared. i knew what i wanted. i knew what i needed where, >> her key advantages were the fact that she was going with a franchise. she had a down payment that was suitable for the business type that she was going into. she had additional liquidity. she had some collateral to put up on the loan. >> my bank took a huge leap of faith with me. i'm fortunate to find the bank that i found. i applied to 25 banks before i got a yes. >> another factor may have been that it was a community banc. they were willing to meet her personally and factored in assets that larger national banks might have ignored. >> she had firsthand knowledge of the area and had a plan to go out and make her business successful that i don't believe would have come across on paper.

>> thanks to savings and investments she accumulated in high school, she secured the financing without any contribution from her parents, and so next she had to find the right location and negotiate a lease. >> i negotiated this lease for this site for almost a year. it was a really, really long negotiating process. you wanted to make sure he was covered in case i fail, and i wanted a fair lease. >> we've been over for with three months. >> it's been two and a half years since she left college. the store has only been open a few months, but aubrey is already looking to her next step. >> my passion is not making sandwiches, and i doerchlt have any problem waking up in the morning to come here. i love it. but i want to run a big business. i want this to turn into something bigger, and i don't know for sure what that's going to be. >> it's not the sandwich making that thrills her. it's the process. >> the process of getting everything lined up. the process of starting a business is something i really like. it's something i love.

>> hank says he is incredibly proud of his daughter, but watching and advising her since those first days when she left college has not been easy. >> for me it's worked out well, but it's been emotionally very hard on me. >> i don't think i would be able to do what i'm doing now if i would have wasted money on college. >> for many of us radio flyer is a brand that makes us think back on childhood adventures and that classic red wagon. founded in 1917 by an italian immigrant radio flyer has become one of the most iconic toys for generations of kids. next year the company celebrates its 100th anniversary. we sat down with third generation ceo robert paxon at their headquarters in chicago to learn how they have held on to their nostalgic brand while continuing to innovate in this learning from the pros.

♪ >> my grandfather started the company in 1917, and he was an italian immigrant that came from a small town near venice, and he was 16 years old when he came here, and eventually he saved up enough money to open up a little one room workshop where he began making wagons. once he had built up the business and he learned that the world's fair was coming to chicago in 1933 he decided there would be this once in a lifetime opportunity to introduce his brand and his product to the world. so he took out a loan from the bank that was in the middle of the depression, so times were really tough, and he built this giant 45 foot tall exhibit of a boy riding a wagon. my grandma always said it was the only time that she ever really saw him really stressed out because so much was at risk. it was really a water shed event in the company's history because it was when my grandfather

introduced the name radio flyer to the world. people always ask why radio flyer. flyer was the buzz word at this time, and lindberg had crossed the atlantic. radio and flyer were really exciting cool words that he put on the wagon, but it had nothing to do with the product. >> i became the president of the company in 1997, and my dad was an incredibly generous and gracious dad and let me make a lot of mistakes, and one of the first things he said to me was my dad lot me make a lot of mistakes says, you're going to make a lot of mistakes. just don't go out of business making them. 90% of consumer products that are launched fail, and so inherent in coming out with new products there's going to be failure. i fwauk a thing called intelligent failure, and basically it's that we don't want to bet the farm on any one product. we want to take a lot of different shots with different products. we want to get them to market as quickly as possible because

we've learned that we never know what's really going to sell until we get it in consumers' hands in a real form on the shelf or on-line for sale. >> when i came into the business in the 1990s the business was struggling, and we had some big questions and challenges that we need to answer. what did the radio flyer brand mean to people? how can we grow while staying true to our heritage? so there was always some inherent tension between this heritage brand that everybody knows and lots of loves, but then how can you innovate without messing up the great thing we have going? we decided instead of fighting the nostalgia, let's just use that as a guardrail and focus in on products that can hit nostalgia, but also can be new? for example, recently we came out with tricycles you can customize. they actually start out as a stroller. there's a push handle. you can add canopies, fabric.

you can put your child's name on the product. it's still true to the essence of the brand, but it's connecting with all the things that consumers want today. we dent waon't want to be the b toy company in the world. we want to be the best. one of the ways we talk about ourselves is we want to be the navy seals of wheels. we use some of these short-hand slogans of we want to be really focused, we want to have the best quality, the best customer service in our category. i think the way that we're able to keep it entrepreneurial here at radio flyer is because we're very focused on mastery of always getting better and being the best in our category, and when you do that, it unlocks a lot of opportunities when you are really focused in on how to make something great. >> tis the season to bring out all the stops when it comes to marketing your small business. small biz trends.com gives us

five things to keep in mind in order to make the fourth quarter as profitable as possible. one, respect differences in believes. make sure any decorations are symbols you use during the season are sensitive to your customers' values and traditions. two, go where the people are. choose the right outlet for your message and make sure you're on their mind as they're gift shopping this season. three, mix the old with the new. include traditional holiday themes in your marketing effort, but also be open to thinking outside the box for new ways you can bring exposure to your small business. four, don't overspend. as people get together, they talk. create campaigns that will tap into this great opportunity for some word of mouth marketing. and, five, note what works and what doesn't. your efforts won't always resonate, so experiment and just keep the successful ones. as small business owners

we're ultimately all salespeople. whether you are selling a new product or selling the idea of your company to an investor, you have to be good at getting someone interested enough to put their money down. anthony is an entrepreneur and sales expert. he is also author of "the only sales guide you'll ever need." he has tips on what we need to do to close the sale. >> thank you for having me. >> i think selling is hard. >> no, selling is easy. you have children? >> i do. i have three. >> you were born a natural closer. you know this because you have children, right? they ask you for what they want. >> i thought you were going to say because i close a deal with my husband or something. >> your children know how to come and ask you for what they want, and if they don't get what they want, what do they do? they change the approach and try again. >> they're relentless. >> because i know their ages, you cave in all the time too, right? >> i do. >> they continue to ask. you were born to do this. we make it harder than it has to be. >> let's go through some of your points. earn the right to ask.

they earned it by simply being my kids. >> my being cute mostly. you're not going to do that as a salesperson or business owner. you're going to look at your buyer where they are and say how do i help them right now? do they need more information? do they have concerns? is there something that they need from me that would create value for them so that i earned the right to get to the yes? >> we always talk about it as what problem do they have that i am solving. not what can i offer them that i want to offer them some. >> it's not about you. it's not about your product. it's always about the client. >> okay. let's go to the next one. know what you're asking for. i think this is important because it's subtle, but that difference makes all the difference. >> we sometimes start trying to sell too soon. i'm going to ask you to buy, but you're not ready to buy. what if i really just need an appointment. i need to know that i'm asking you for another meetings or i'm asking you to share with me your concerns so that i can help resolve them for you or maybe you just need more information. what we do when we go too fast,

we leave the buyer behind. you need to know what's the real next commitment that you need and then you need to ask just for that commitment. >> what do you think? if you have a meeting with someone, you pitch them the first time. they don't get back to you. e-mailing them and saying, hey, do you need any more information? is there anything that your team needs to understand? any questions i can answer? >> i hate e-mail. >> got it. >> call. >> the phone. an e-mail i can just ignore. a phone call i get a chance to say i'm thinking about you and i'm not sure if you are struggling with this idea right now, but i want to make sure that i search you the best that i can. can you share with me what you are thinking? we're here to serve. the more we do the role of serving, the better we do. >> then don't use old tired techniques. what are those? >> which works better for you? 10:00 or 2:00? that's called the alternate of choice which means i'm not giving you a choice. you're meeting with me. people resist that because it's self-oriented and it's pushy. we don't need to do that. >> what do you instead? >> i you just say, listen, we've done all this work together, and

i think it just makes sense right now for us to go ahead and begin unless there's something else you think we should do first. just ask directly. that's a better proechl than trying to come up with some tricky close from an old closing -- people still say things like if i could do this for you, would you buy? or am i the kind of person that you want to buy from? that's just avoiding asking the question anyway. you just have to ask. >> it just become too salesy. it makes people on the other side -- it ruffles their feathers where. >> you don't want to be treat thatted that way. we're just human beings and we're having a conversation. >> only thing i say though that is someone was trying to still me something recently. she used every old sales trick in the book, and because she did it all, i kind of fell for it at some point, and then i finally listened to her and made -- i canceled 1,000 times, and then finally because i felt badly cancelling so many times, i listened to her, and it worked. >> persistence. you can persist with good language and good approaches as easy as you can bad approaches.

use good approaches. >> we talked about asking directly, and finally, resolve any concerns, which is what we were talking about at the beginning. >> every buyer at the end of a buying decision starts to think is this too much money? is this a person i can really trust? am i really going to get the benefit that they're promising? if you're not there to resolve those concerns, they start to resolve them on their own. or they start to listen to somebody who doesn't really know enough to help them. if you really want to serve them, just know they always have fear at the end. they're always going to have questions that need dressed and make sure you're there to take care of that. >> if they're talking to you and a competitor, what i always say is just please if they offer you something that i'm not, please come back and ask me because you may not be comparing apples to apples. >> you always want the last bite at the apple. if there's something you didn't address but it's important, you want to make sure you take care of it. >> thank you so much for coming on the program. again, so many people think selling is hard, but you solution can learn how to do it better. >> absolutely. thank you. >> thank you. >>.

>> are you looking for a great gift to give clients this season. there are small treats that are perfect for small business owners looking to say thanks. lucky judges get to try this em. hospitality expert larry is the founder and ceo of rotten hotels and natalie is ceo founder and ceo of brava investments. >> hi. i'm melanie moss of brooklyn based -- mini-melanie. our two signature desserts are minichocolate truffles and mini-cakes that are just as beautiful as they are delicious. i started meninimelanie when i worked for -- at stone barnes. since getting started over the past two years each year we've more than doubled our sales and we've attracted clients like the city's top pell groups, event planning firms, and caterings,

and we've even partnered with luxury brand like tiffany & company and este lauder. we're looking to raise $250,000 for a 10% stake in our company and that would allow us to grow our sales platform on our website mini-melanie.com and hire additional kitchen and packaging staff and to establish our first retail location. we've just moved into our very own kitchen space in williamsburg, a thriving neighborhood, and we're -- our goal is to become the very next godiva for a mobile first generation which loves our minis, and they fit the modern lifestyle. >> good job. >> thank you. >> and i got to taste these too. i must admit before we came on here, i thought they tasted very good. you know, one thing you didn't talk about that the packaging is beautiful, and i think when you are thinking about a gift, this is important. okay. from you both, two numbers. you don't have to talk yet. between one and ten, what do you

think of the product? i can already tell the answer to that. then number two what did you think of the pitch? it's interesting that you say for a mobile first generation. right? that to me perks my ears up. i didn't know why. that's what i think. let's get to what you guys think. >> okay. larry, you're up. >> 10 on the product. awesome. awesome. the packaging i really love. you want me to go to the next one? >> go for it. >> i think your pitch is an a-plus. i think it's really good. it's a little bit canned for my own personal taste. one thing i would like to hear is what are your investors going to get. you did a great job on saying what it's going to be used for. if i'm an investor, i want to say what's in this for me? >> natalie. >> all right. i feel like i'm going to change mine to a ten, but i'm going to say nine simply because i know that all good things can still be improved. i love it. i love it. it makes me curious about what other products you have.

it makes me curious about what other products you plan to develop. nine for the product. it has a lot of potential. seven for the pitch only because and maybe it mirrors a little bit of what larry is saying that in addition to knowing what's in it for the entrepreneur -- sorry -- for the investors, there's a sense of what's the big dream, right? how are you going to take over the world with this product? what are the big, big goals over the course of the next four, five years and beyond, and i love a pitch that makes me dream, and i think that is the one thing that was perhaps missing most of all. >> if i were to add, go back to what i said, the mobile first generation. companies like bloom that are reinventing the flower industry. you think why do we need another flower delivered. that is mobile first. i would love to hear what makes you different. how are you going to take over godiva with the new first mobile first asset. >> thank you. >> and thank you both for your advice. i bet you can have another one of these on your way out if you want. >> if any of you out there have

a product or service and you want feedback from our elevator pitch panel on your chances of getting interested investors, just send us an e-mail. the address is your business @msnbc.com. please include a short summary of what your company does, how much money you're trying to raise, and then, of course, what you intend to do with that money. we look forward to reading those pitches and seeing some of you here in our elevator. when we come back, we have more great advice for you, including what you need to do to build your personal brand, and finding an untapped market when starting a small business after you retire. will your business be ready when growth presents itself? american express open cards can help you take on a new job,

or fill a big order or expand your office and take on whatever comes next. find out how american express cards and services can help prepare you for growth at open.com. >> john writes to us with this question. "i am newly retired. i want to start a business, but how do i find a need i can fill?" >> i this he that's a great question given that we're having longer life spans and many of us are going to have second and third careers. starting a company can be difficult. we know a lot of them don't work out. my first advice would be to start with what you know. whatever it was that you were doing as a career, perhaps there's something you can gleen on to that you saw was missing that you can either invent or find a way to make that available. that gives your brand a great story. you have that credibility of what you have done before, says

and now you saw this need and invented it. if it can't come from that, maybe it's something that you really like and have a passion for, a hobby or some other pursuit that, again, you have some expertise that you can find a need in there and then bring that brand story in since you would be the expert. third, if you want to go completely to the other end, i would look at areas where there's tremendous growth. right now they're saying the health care field is where there's going to be the most job growth in the next five to ten years, so doing some research, seeing what's missing, that can be difficult, but if it you can find it, then clearly there's going to be a lot of opportunity. just make sure that you protect yourself so that some big conglomerate doesn't say that was a great idea, thanks a lot, and steal your thunder. >> we now have the top tips you need to know to help your small business grow. larry and natalie are back with us once again. welcome both of you again. >> hi. >> larry, let's start with you. >> my mop tip. i think we need to build our personal brand at the same time we're building our professional brand when we're business owners. you know what happens to most

businesses. they fail, right? we intend a couple of years building this brand for our business, and then if we have to spend time letting the world on know who we are, it's like starting all over again. clearly the higher our personal profile is, the easier it is to get investments and easier to attract top talents. build your personal brand while you're building your professional brand. >> it is a lot of work. it's a lot of work to do that, and i always look at companies that are very successful. you don't know who the founders are. i think for someone who just isn't -- doesn't want to be famous themselves, doesn't want to build their personal brand, they might look at one of those companies and say can't i be that? >> you can be. it took a lot of struggle for them to get there. it's hard, no doubt about it, but entrepreneurship is not for the faint of heart. >> natalie, you are up. >> i love that advice. i have recently been thinking a lot about study that the world economics forum released about about how it will take 170 years to get to gender parody at the

pace that we're currently at, so i stay up at night worrying about how to accelerate the pace of change and one of the things that i have been thinking about is this concept of leapfrog. leapfrogging over obstacles and skipping steps not for the sake of cheating or just getting there faster, but as a source of innovation. i would encourage especially new entrepreneurs to think about all of the ways that they have been told to do things. people who have done them before. they say step one, step two, step three, step four, and throw it out the window and think how can i leapfrog over some of these steps as a way of innovating. in latin america where i partly grew up, you have farmers who never had a land line who are walking around with two smartphones in their pocket. >> i was exactly thinking about leapfrogging over land lines. >> completely. it's like, you know, maybe the proper way of doing it was to go through this sort of technology chain, but they don't care what the proper way is. they just skipped those steps and got straight to the latest innovation faster and more owe efficiently than anyone else, and i encourage all aun par

entrepreneurs to do the same. >> with so many on-line tools out there, it can be daunting to figure out which ones will actually help you in your small business. that's why we asked our viewers to share some of their favorites. >> well, one tool we are using is progressive grocer, and we're doing that to see sort of the markets that we're reaching and sort of an overlap with advertising the market. >> one website that i do visit quite often is marketing professionals, and they give tidbits and guidelines for different companies on how to market your product, how to grow your business, and i have used some of their advice and it has proven to be very successful. >> one tool i use is -- it's a remote phone system, and it's great because it gives you the look and feel of a big company without having to have an office or have land lines where.

>> so as a family business, one resource that i really rely on is the family business consulting group, which is their website is fbcg.com, and what they are is a group of leading consultants on family business, and they do a lot of on-line b webinars and news letters. all information helping specifically family businesses on topics such as planning, strategy ee strategic planning, growth, organizational change, hr. >> this year's your biz selfie comes from olivia doll house tea room. they host these adorable dress up princess parties with girls with performers in a fairy tale setting. fun. if you want your droemz to come true, pick up your cell phone and take a selfie of you and your business and send it to your business @msnbc.com or tweet it to @msnbc your biz. don't forget to include your name, the name of your business, and location, and please use the

_#your biz selfie. thanks so much for joining us today. we would love to hear from you, so if you have any questions or comments about the show, e-mail us at your business @msnbc.com. also, you can go to our website. it's hope -- we posted all of the segments from today's show. plus, a whole lot more. don't forget to connect with us on all of our digital and social media platforms as well. we look forward to seeing you next time. until then, i'm j.j. ramburg and, remember, we make your business our business. will your business be ready when growth presents itself? american express open cards can help you take on a new job, or fill a big order

or expand your office and take on whatever comes next. find out how american express cards and services can help prepare you for growth at open.com. happy friday, i would like it introduce you to the impeccable, awesome name, right, the "impeccable." there are not many ships that look like this in the world. it's got a strange design. the big, high catamaran hull. it's an even -- it's known for towing an array sensor system. it's basically a giant sonar array, a giant listening post, part of the reason this